Bridal Shower Wood Box
Painted Decorative Wood Box
includes pattern, instructions, and free video
Bridal or Baby Shower, Birthday, Anniversary
Beautiful, decorative wood boxes for special occasion parties. Guests can place items such as game answers, special wishes for the bride and groom, or memories of the guest of honor into the box. Create a meaningful keepsake for the guest of honor.
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Free Video Tutorial
IMPORTANT: I created a video for this project. Please watch the video to see my painting technique. The video follows my written instructions.
Choose colors for your occasion
Bridal Shower
My boxes were created for a bridal shower. These would also work for a baby shower or birthday or other special occasion.
SUPPLIES
wood box
pattern (I provide a print of my two designs that you can download for tracing or to use as inspiration.)
primer - I used my usual wall board primer (Behr Drywall Plus primer & sealer) because I liked the whitewashed look it gave, and I had a lot of it, due to all of my DIY home improvement projects. You could also use watered down white house paint or artist acrylic paint.
sand paper
general painting supplies: coated paper plate, paint brushes, water cup, paper towel
For this project I used a small round brush for detail, and a medium and small flat brush for the leaves and flowers.
acrylic paints (I use Grumbacher, Golden, and Liquetex - any good quality artist or craft paint will work well) - choose colors you like. I chose colors that most closely matched the wedding colors.
My colors: Hooker’ green, green gold, grayish blue, Prussian blue, raw umber (dark brown), raw sienna, burnt sienna, phthalocyanine green (blue-green). I also used black and white. I didn’t use all colors shown in the video. The cerulean blue was too far onto the green side. The bride’s colors were more of a lavender blue - Greyish Blue by Amsterdam was perfect, especially with a bit of Prussian Blue by Grumbacher mixed in.
I got my inspiration for flowers and colors from a string of flowers my daughter had purchased for her wedding. We used it on a tri-fold screen for the shower. It made a perfect place for photo ops.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Clean and sand the boxes if necessary. Mine were fine as is - I just used a tack cloth to dust them off.
2. Paint on a light coat of thin white paint. For a whitewashed look, meaning that the wood grain shows through, don’t use a heavy coat. The paint needs to be thin. If using artist paint, a thinning medium can be used - or water. A good drywall primer- sealer works well - see my note under “supplies” above.
I love, love, love the whitewashed look with the wood grain showing through. I painted only the outside, and the top edges of the box sides.
3. Choose your design. Inspiration can come from anywhere. In additions to the flowers shown above, I turned to the paper plates and napkins we had chosen for the bridal shower. I liked the feeling of the pattern. The purpose wasn’t to copy the design, but to capture the feel of it.
4. I start by placing some of each color of paint onto a coated paper plate. That works well as a palette. Set out water cup, paper towel and brushes.
5. Paint your design. I started with the main flower, then added vines and leaves and smaller flowers.
I painted them with similar designs, and decided to paint only the tops.
Beautiful Shower!
The boxes came out so well - they perfectly fit the feel I was going for.
The weather was perfect! Sunny and gorgeous. The hostess set up outdoors as well as inside. The outdoor garden tables were beautiful, as were the indoor food tables. She did an outstanding job on the charcuterie board!
Overall, a perfect day!
Refer to: Bridal Shower Decorative Box Video (click link to go to Youtube, or watch it below)
Special Occasion
Rustic wood bar made from wood pallets. Quick and easy.